system lock up

[Robin Laing]

chris wrote:
> Hi all,
> 
> I am somewhat at a loss for how to debug this problem.
> 
> Basically my system locks up, its a workstation grade Xeon I do 
> development on, essentially, the screen (in X) freezes, the keyboard 
> locks, the network locks (it stops responding to ping).  The only 
> visible indicator I get when it freezes is sometimes, I see a 4 or 5 
> pixel high band of grey/brown that spans the width of the window I am 
> currently working in.
> 
> I dont see anything out of the ordinary that something is wrong, I can 
> let the system sit for days and it runs fine, but when I start doing 
> work on it, I start seeing the freezes (it froze up twice in about 3 
> hours today).  But sometimes I can work several days in a row without a 
> problem.
> 
> I would like any ideas on how to debug this.
> Thanks in Advance
> chris
> 
> My System:
> Motherboard: IWill DP533
> Processors: Dual 2.4GHz Xeon 533MHZ processors
> Video: ATI Radeon 6500LE
> Hard Drive: several small external SCSI Hard drives
> Memory: 1G RAM
> O/S: Fedora Core 4
> 
> thanks in advance.
> 

I just got over a similar problem and my fault was traced to a 
insufficient power supply.  Changed from 400 to 500 watt and no lockups.

I checked with a power calculator and it showed that I needed about 
440 watts.

Do the Math to Get Your PC All the Power It Needs
http://www.pcworld.com/howto/article/0,aid,119585,pg,2,00.asp



-- 
Robin Laing